What are the differences between the packages ltsp-server and ltsp-server-standalone

[dashohoxha]

How can we find the differences between two similar Ubuntu packages, or between a Debian package and an Ubuntu package that are similar?

[d78ui98]

LTSP-server - It package just provides the basic minimal features necessary to build an ltsp environment. depends - debconf, debootstrap, openssh-client recommends - nbd-server, dnsmasq, openssh-server, squashfs-tools

LTSP-server-standalone - It is complete ltsp server that includes ltspfs, ltsp-server package, dnsmasq. depends - dnsmasq, ldm-server, ltsp-server, ltspfs, nbd-server, openssh-server, squashfs-tools recommends - ltsp-docs

I downloaded their .deb packages with apt-get and used debdiff to compare them here is a gist of the output - https://gist.github.com/d78ui98/8159947236b0245e5145fd8f90bb48ce

I also extracted the source of the their packages. I am using meld to see differences between them here is the screenshot - https://image.ibb.co/kDkBKo/comparision.png

[dashohoxha]

Try to use diff -u on the source code of these packages. Neither the gist, nor the screenshot do not seem very useful to me.

Then, what are the differences between these packages? Should we use one of them or the other? Have you tried to use each of them? How are they different from each-other? The best way to find out is by testing them, but you can also ask on the mailing list, in case somebody knows.

[d78ui98]

I used diff -u. Got lots of output that concludes there are lots of bash scripts inside ltsp-server source. We can take a look at them if we wanter deeper understanding of ltsp.

what are the differences between these packages?

well ltsp-server is the main packages. Most stuff like man pages, ltps-build-client files for different distributions, all important scripts, etc are defined in it.

The ltsp-server-standalone package does not have a lot of files. It has defined ltsp-server as one of its dependencies in control file. That way everything inside ltsp-server packages used in standalone. Standalone also has a lot of other dependencies like gnome-session, mate-desktop-environment. x-session-manager, x-window-manager, isc-dhcp-server, dhcp3-server, dnsmasq, ldm-server, libasound2-plugins, ltspfs, ltsp-server, nbd-server.

Should we use one of them or the other?

I personally think we should always use ltsp-server instead of ltsp-server-standalone. Since it is very flexible as after installing it I can install the only packages that we need. This also makes it resouce friendly.

Standalone is heavy. It also confuses me a bit. I mean why it installs 3 packages( isc-dhcp-server, dhcp3-server, dnsmasq) that does exact same stuff. isc-dhcp-server is not even used anymore. Still one can go for standalone packages since it requires less number of steps.

Have you tried to use each of them?

yes. First ever ltsp setup that I created was with ltsp-server-standalone. I remember it had very less number of steps.

• just have to install ltsp-server-standalone package.
• it creates /etc/ltsp directory inside it edit dhcpd.conf
• then run ltsp-build-client
• after it reboot and start the client

and with ltsp-server package we have been creating it ever since.

but you can also ask on the mailing list, in case somebody knows.

Yes I can drop a mail there. If someone would like to add to this.

[dashohoxha]

Ok. I thought that maybe we were missing something by not using ltsp-server-standalone. I thought that maybe it could be useful for our standalone case. But it seems that it is not necessary. We can close this issue.

[d78ui98]

Nice :)